Rise & Grind: Thursday, August 13th
Welcome to the RotoGrinders cup o’morning joe. Start your day off right here, as we sort through yesterday’s happenings and take a peek at the upcoming DFS day.
In Case You Missed It
PokerStars DFS – The parent company of PokerStars is Amaya Inc. Earlier this year, Amaya announced that they were planning to enter the DFS space this fall. There has been speculation for months on what the Amaya product will look like, and e finally have the answer to that question. This morning, Amaya announced that they have purchased Victiv. The current Victiv team will continue to manage the site but it will be re-branded as StarsDraft. Say goodbye to Victiv and hello to StarsDraft everyone! I’m sure more news will follow as we learn about this acquisition.
IK Enemkpali – Yesterday, we brought you the story of Jets LB IK Enemkpali who punched QB Geno Smith in the face and broke his jaw. Enemkpali was promptly cut by the Jets. Many including myself speculated Enemkpali would catch on somewhere. That turned out to be true, as the Buffalo Bills claimed Enemkpali off waivers. Really it makes a lot of sense: picking up the guy that just took out your division rival’s starting QB. In fact, they should give that man a raise.
RotoGrinders Beer Pong Tournament – What’s the only thing cooler than winning bragging rights as the RG Beer Pong Champion? Winning an official RotoGrinders beer pong table! The annual RotoGrinders Beer Pong tournament will take place this year in Vegas at the RG kickoff party. The tournament is capped at 64 teams, so get your signups in now. CruzinTovVctory claims to have played beer pong once or twice in college, so he’s running this thing. Go sign up in this thread if you are attending the party and interested in playing.
PGA Championship – As I’m writing this, you are probably already tilting about your Millionaire Maker team. If you aren’t tilting, maybe you jumped out to an early lead and you are already mentally spending your money. Before you spend too much of your $1M, you might want to make sure you have a unique team. Our friend nicks523 on Twitter has the top 20 most used lineups. If your team is Watson, Day, Lee, Reed, Streeb and Koepka, congratulations; you nailed the nuts! That team was used by 585 people.
MLB Recap – Clayton Kershaw is pretty good at baseball. Too bad he isn’t as good as Hisashi Iwakuma, who threw a no-hitter against the Orioles yesterday. That really wasn’t even the most shocking result of the day though. Dee Gordon hit a home run off a lefty. The only person more shocked than me to see that was Dee himself.
Big Winners – July and August are called the “dog days of summer” for a reason. When the weather heats up, so does scoring in MLB. Lately, it has taken over 200 on DK and 90 on FD to take down the large GPPs. Last night was no different as Miguel Sano hit two home runs and had six RBIs. A few people managed to cash in on that. tdawgx711 took down the FD Slam and Rally, cartwbi won the Early Monster, deejayndachi won the early Slam, ehafner won the Slugger, treasurecruise won the Squeeze, and myboyblue55 won the Home Run. Over on DraftKings, bobbyfi won the Mega Perfect Game, bquicksix won the Payoff Pitch, nextsignal won the Moonshot, broodybru won the Gold Glove, and fewfew won the early Payoff Pitch. For the rest of yesterday’s links check this forum thread.
On the Menu
MLB Today – There are only nine games on the MLB schedule today. They are divided into two slates with four games early and five late. Notorious has his First Look posted already and the Grind Down will be coming later. With this being a shorter slate, the offerings will be a bit slimmer today. I wouldn’t blame you if you punted MLB and just played NFL preseason instead.
MLB GPPs – Before we move on to NFL, I will give the MLB tournaments an obligatory mention. The Big Two have well over $600K in guarantees tonight, so MLB is still worth your time. DraftKings has a $100K Perfect Game, $110K Payoff Pitch, and $100K Moonshot. Over on FanDuel they are offering a $100K Grand Slam, $75K Rally, and $100K Monster.
#NarrativeStreet – If you want to win one of the big GPPs above, you are going to have to think of some guys no one else did. One way to do that is pick your team based on narratives. Batting leadoff for Team Narrative Street will be Randal Grichuk who has a #BirthdayGame. He will be followed by Danny Valencia, Josh Donaldson, Brett Lawrie and Michael Cuddyer who all have #RevengeGames. Pitching for Team Narrative Street will be Mat Latos. This is kind of a stretch but the Dodgers are giving away a Sandy Koufax bobblehead today to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Kofax’s Perfect Game . Hopefully, Mat Latos can channel that bobblehead energy into his own Perfect Game. Last but not least, we take a peek at the Daily Batter Hub for today’s best BVP splits. The #BVPplayoftheDay is easily Adrian Beltre who bats .228 off Ervin Santana in 57 at-bats but has five home runs!
NFL Preseason – Tonight 12 NFL teams will play their preseason opener. DraftKings is running a six-game slate. I spent most of the day yesterday banging out a preseason picks article. It ended up being 3200 words that really just said: don’t be stupid, play Gus Johnson. You can find the full version here. DraftKings has a little over $70K in guaranteed contests for this slate and they have heavy overlay right now. Go read my article, and come join me in the forums as we discuss tonight’s top plays.
With that, I’m out of here. Good luck in your contests tonight. I will probably be in GrindersLive chat and on the forums with some last minute NFL advice. You can also find me on Twitter, the handle is sethayatesDFS. If you don’t see me there, hopefully you see me right back here again tomorrow.